The Snowball Episode
by Antoshka HalfHuman
Summary: Could she really have resisted the lure of the Doctor's turned back and all that snow? Snowballs are the natural reaction of any Briton to snow.
1. Prologue

_This is the first thing I've ever let anyone else read, so I guess I'd be obliged if anyone who leaves a comment would be constructive and nice. This may or may not grow into a proper (well, I say proper) story, but mainly it's to ask you, gentle reader, if I've got the characters right enough to continue. Hope you like it._

* * *

"Well," said Rose, a diplomatic tone in her voice. "At least we're in the right place. Just a few months out, that's pretty good for you." She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. Her thin jumper was doing little to protect her from the chilly conditions. "Bit cold though, isn't it?" she laughed.

"Oi, watch it you, or I might just take off and leave you here," he joked back before shoving his hands deeper into the pockets of his tan coat. He'd never admit it out loud, but she was right. A few months out and he'd landed them smack bang in the middle of winter. And it was freezing.

"You wouldn't dare!" Rose squealed in mock horror.

"I would too! It'd be a lot quieter without you around, I can tell you," he sniffed as he turned to survey the bleak surroundings. Big mistake. Something soft and wet impacted squarely with the back of his head. Spinning round he found his darling companion standing there, a look of near angelic innocence on her face, blonde hair shining in the low winter sun.

"Sorry," she apologised with a cheeky smile, "I couldn't help it." He shook the snow shrapnel from his messy hair and made a show of brushing himself down from the shoulders to the knees. In a flash, he scooped up a handful of the pure white snow, compacted it into a vaguely snowball shaped lump and hurled it at Rose. She squeaked and flung her hands up to shield her face but there was no need; in his haste he'd aimed wide and the missile thumped harmlessly into the snow behind her.

Right, she thought, that was it. Abandoning all caution, she crouched to pick up her reply. The move gave her intentions away and the Doctor made a clumsy dash for cover behind the solid blue bulk of the TARDIS, his movements hampered somewhat by the fact that he sank to his ankles in the snow with each footstep. Forming her snowball carefully, she set it aside and made a second before picking up one in each hand and setting off towards the Doctor's rather obvious hiding place. They were the only visible living things for miles around, although chances were there might be a few bemused squirrels or the like watching from the wood down in the valley. Pausing for a moment, she could hear his footsteps crunching in the snow on the far side of the blue box. Slowly, she crept up to the TARDIS, then charged round it only to be confronted with empty space. Before she could realise what had happened she heard him rush round from the other side of the TARDIS and suddenly she felt a freezing cold sensation running down her back. She gasped, the shock of the cold taking her breath away. The Doctor laughed and took a precautionary step back as she turned to face him, the angelic expression of before replaced by one of total shock. Her hands acted of their own accord; she lobbed both snowballs at him at the same time. One hit him on the shoulder as he spun to protect himself. The second took him on the neck, snow sliding down under his shirt collar, his breath catching as it trickled down his skin.

Stumbling backwards away from Rose, who was deftly forming new ammunition, he dodged back round the side of the TARDIS. Carefully, he brushed the snow from his collar, trying not to let any more slip down inside. A snowball whizzed past his shoulder to thud into the solid wooden side of his cover and he decided it was time to move. He sprinted full pelt away from the TARDIS, arms shielding his head as a lucky throw from Rose landed yet another snowball on target. Only then did he realise he might be outclassed in this kind of fight.

Rose knew she was winning and laughed as the Doctor tried to put some distance between them, chucking lumps of loosely compacted snow back at her. Those water-bomb fights back home when she was a kid were paying off; her aim wasn't as bad as she'd thought it was. Granted, most of her missiles were landing harmlessly in the snow, exploding on impact into little puffs of powdery white shrapnel, but she had the Doctor on the run. He pulled a weird kind of pirouette to avoid a snowball that looked funny enough as it was, coat-tails fluttering round him, before completing the comedy moment by slipping and falling, arms flailing, into the soft snow. Rose ran over as fast as she could in the snow, taking care not to fall herself, which was quite hard owing how much she was laughing at the Doctor's failed stunt. As she neared the prone form lying in the snow, it suddenly rolled over onto its side and lobbed a surprise snowball at her. She shrieked and ducked as it sailed over her head. She reached the Doctor, still lying in the snow after his unsuccessful attack, and weighed her remaining snowball in her hand.

"Truce, truce!" he shouted, hands raised in a placating gesture. "Peace! No more!" The victor struggled for a moment to maintain her threatening expression then dissolved into giggling. He didn't half look pathetic, covered in snow, lying at her feet. Rose tossed the last missile over her shoulder, dusted off her hands and then offered one to the Doctor, who grabbed it and let her pull him upright.

"Your hands are freezing," he observed, taking both of hers in his own. She didn't answer, meeting his gaze for a second before looking down at the trampled snow.

"Come on," the Doctor said, putting his arm around her and steering her towards the TARDIS door. "If we're going to look around this place properly, I'd better find you a coat. Your mum would kill me if she found out I let you catch cold." He grinned at her and held the door open for her to step back into the warmth of the TARDIS.


	2. Chapter 1

_I decided to continue with this anyway, mainly to see if I can actually reach the end. I am attempting to write it in what I call 'book length' chapters, which means this could take me a while, since I need about 2200+ words a shot. I warn anyone who reads this in advance that I am doing my A2's this year and as such may have a huge gap in writing in May/June. But after that I get a long summer, so it evens out in the end. Thanks to Kitty for the review, it gave me the guts to try make a real go of this, and I hope you enjoy this. By the way, if anyone can think of a decent title for this, suggestions would be much appreciated._

* * *

Sitting on the battered pilot's chair, Rose wrapped both her cold hands round the mug of hot chocolate and suppressed a shiver in case she spilled it. She heard a door being kicked open somewhere in the labyrinthine corridors of the TARDIS and surmised that the Doctor had found the stuff he was looking for. Smiling at the memory of the snowball fight and the Doctor's thorough trouncing on that score, she sipped at the warming drink and thought about home. Specifically, about the time when it had snowed once at New Year. She'd only been young, still in primary school, off for the Christmas holidays.

She'd begged her mum to let her stay up until midnight and had tried to stay awake anyway, even after she'd been sent to bed. She remembered sitting cocooned in her duvet and watching the snowflakes falling outside her window, the settled snow looking orangey-yellow in the glow from the street lights. Even the colourful bloom of premature fireworks hadn't looked as pretty as seeing the estate covered in a slowly thickening blanket of snow. Jackie had woken her up next morning, telling her it was snowing and everywhere was covered in snow. It had snowed on and off all day. She'd gone out, wearing more layers of clothes than she'd ever worn before, and played in the snow with Mickey for hours. Within half an hour they'd built a snowman outside Mickey's front door, complete with a carrot for a nose. Then they'd built a ramp by filling in the tread of some steps and sledged down it on a plastic tea-tray. When that got boring they'd taken it in turns to push each other along on their impromptu sledge until they reached the park, where a giant snowball fight was taking place. The tray had become an invaluable shield for the pair of them until everyone was too tired to throw snow anymore and they'd gone home. Her mum had clucked and fussed over them like a hen, making them change out of their snow-covered clothes and giving them hot cocoa to drink. Rose knew now they'd been lucky it was New Year; the only reason the snow was still unsullied by the time the children woke up was because everyone else was still in bed with a hangover.

The Doctor crashed into the control room, interrupting her reverie and bumping into everything it was possible to bump into, including the pilot's chair. Acting fast, Rose saved her hot chocolate and darted forward to rescue the mug of tea balanced on the rim of the console. The Doctor, in the mean time, deposited his load on the recently vacated seat and began to sort it out into individual items. As a bemused Rose watched, the pile resolved itself into a pale blue jacket, a pair of warm looking boots, a ski glove, the pair of sodden trainers the Doctor had previously been wearing and a very long multicoloured scarf that was intertwined with a significantly shorter woollen green and white striped one. Happy with his work, the Doctor turned to her and grinned. Rose sipped at her hot chocolate, trying to decide whether the scuffed and creased riding boots he was now wearing instead of his usual trainers looked silly or not. The Doctor stepped over and relieved her of the second mug, taking a swig of the steaming tea. He waved vaguely at the separated pile, the tea threatening to slop out of the mug at any second.

"There," he beamed. "Nice warm jacket for you, should keep Jackie off my back. Brought you some better footwear too." He brandished his mug at the boots before downing half of the contents in one go. "Where'd the other glove go? I hope it's in here somewhere and not in the corridor or it'll take months to find, the old girl's rearranged them again. I did apologise for kicking open that door, but you women, you don't half hold a grudge," he mumbled to no-one in particular. He spotted the missing article under the chair and picked it up, placing it with its partner on the seat. Rose blew on her drink to cool it then finished it off and put the mug on the nearest bit of free space on the console. The Doctor had balanced his half-empty mug in-between the controls and was unlacing one of his wet trainers. Pulling the tongue of the shoe out as far as it would go, he crouched down and felt around for a hot component before wedging it in the central column to dry. As Rose shrugged on the coat, unsurprised to find it fitted her quite well, the Doctor proceeded to do the same with the other shoe before donning the long multicoloured scarf. He was ready. He watched as Rose pulled on the new boots and tucked her discarded shoes tidily under the pilot's chair. She stuffed the gloves into her pockets and picked up the remaining scarf.

"Where'd you get that from?" she enquired, nodding at his scarf.

"It's a long story," he replied, swinging one dirty end round.

"Oh ha ha, very funny," Rose said, deadpan, but still smiling at his rubbish joke.

"Actually, it was a gift. And that one," he explained, gesturing at the green and white one Rose was holding, "I stole from a snowman in Oxford, when I needed a disguise. I didn't think he'd mind, only I was being chased by some rather nasty Shaaratzi cultists who were hiding in the university doing 'research'."

Interested, Rose leaned against the pilot's chair and asked, "What were they really doing then?"

"Oh, planning on converting Britain to their religion using mass brainwashing. I hid in a cupboard all day waiting for them all to leave the lab. Then I, er, relieved them of a rather vital part of their machine," he told her, "One of them came back in and I had to make a break for it out the window." He finished, rather sheepishly. Brightening, he drank the rest of his now lukewarm tea in one gulp, ditched the mug back to its place nestled in among the piecemeal controls and took a quick look at the scanner screen. "Shall we go explore then?"

As he bounded down the ramp ahead of her she realised why the scarf ends were so dirty; he kept stepping on the trailing ends.

"Hang on, aren't you going to wear a coat?" she called, pausing halfway to the door.

"Nah," came the nonchalant response. "It's only minus three out there. Positively balmy. Don't worry, I've got a T-shirt _and _a shirt on. You're getting as bad as your mother." And with that he threw open the door and fell out, ever eager to see what was on the other side. Sighing at the last remark, she followed him out, shutting the door behind her. It never ceased to amaze Rose that someone so obviously well travelled could be ceaselessly amazed by whatever he happened to find outside his own front door. Granted, she reasoned, his front door did move, but still, the excitement never seemed to abate.

He stared around, eyes soaking up every detail of their surroundings, while he waited for her to catch up. He let his gaze follow the trail of footprints they'd left, showing their route up the slope from where the TARDIS stood to the ridge and then along to the top of the valley where he stood now. Behind him the land flattened out into a plateau, the meeting place of several of the rolling hills. Below in the valley there was a wood, the trees seeming to huddle together for warmth, their branches bare and stark against the white hills around them. The sky was a brilliant clean blue and a few clouds as white as the snow hung in its vast canopy. Rose, a little out of breath after the brisk walk, moved up to stand beside him. A whisper of a wind tickled her face and she flicked her hair out of her eyes. Turning, she surveyed the land all around them. It was beautiful, she thought, all clean and white, pristine mountains standing tall in the distance across the flatland behind them. Something glinted in the weak sunlight, catching her eye. Not taking her eyes from the foreign object, she reached out and tugged on the Doctor's sleeve.

"What's that?" she queried, pointing at the rapidly approaching thing. The Doctor bent down to look along her arm. He didn't get time to answer.

Whumph! A distinctly non-snow-made missile thumped into the ground a little to their left, showering the pair with shards of ice and lumps of soil. The thing moved closer, closing the gap quickly. Grabbing Rose's hand, the Doctor pulled her round and set off down the slope into the valley. Careering down the incline at breakneck pace, feet sinking into the snow with every step, Rose struggled gamely to keep her feet. This was nothing compared to staying upright during a particularly bad TARDIS journey. Snow plumed into the air as another shot missed by inches. Her blood was roaring in her ears and she could feel the Doctor's hand in hers, tugging this way and that as he raced with her down towards the cover of the trees. They sprinted into the wood and stopped, risking a glance back up the hill to see their pursuer charging down after them. The fugitive pair looked at each other, a silent understanding passing between them in a split second. Simultaneously they tore off deeper into the wood.

He pushed Rose ahead of him as the trees got closer together the further in they went. Instinctively, she followed what seemed to be an animal path, knowing that the last thing they needed was for her to lead them into a dead end. The leafless trees seemed to help them, forming a twisting tunnel through which they ran full tilt, last season's dead brambles catching at their clothes. The Doctor chanced a quick look over his shoulder; he couldn't see anything but the almighty crashing that pursued them spurred him on. Looking ahead again, he could see Rose was tiring. Even in the wood the snow was thick on the ground, making it harder to run. His own breath, frosting in a white cloud with each exhalation, was becoming more ragged and snatched. Half turning, he slowed a little, casting around for anything he could use to slow down the machine that followed them but the ground appeared utterly bereft of useful branches. A horrendous ripping sound made him look back. Frighteningly nearby a tree toppled, its roots snapping and creaking as it fell. Twigs rained down on the mechanical monster that stepped over the trunk. He ran, knowing it was no use as the ground thundered with the machine's heavy footsteps.

She suddenly became aware of the fact that the Doctor was no longer behind her. Desperate, she stumbled into a clearing and stopped, turning to look back the way she had come. She could hear the measured thud of its footfalls, hear it battering its way through the undergrowth in pursuit of the Doctor. Gulping down the cold air, terrified to the core and yet determined to give their chaser a run for its money, she waited for the Doctor to catch her up.

He could feel it gaining on him as he leapt over fallen branches and dodged thorns. He hoped Rose had hidden somewhere safe. He considered what was following him. His mind ran in different directions, the different thought processes interweaving and separating at the same time. If it was a machine, if he could get close enough to touch it, then, perhaps, he could fry its electrics. It wasn't much of a plan, but it would have to do. He burst into a small clearing. Rose!

"Rose, go! Run!" he yelled as he concealed himself behind a wide tree trunk, reaching inside his jacket for his screwdriver. She hesitated, confused by his actions. "Run!" he repeated and waved her on. She looked back at him before breaking into a jog for the other side of the clearing. The snow beside Rose exploded, throwing her to the ground, as the hunter rushed after her. Without wasting time to consider whether it was a good idea or not, the Doctor darted forward and jumped onto its back. Instantly it spun around wildly in an attempt to dislodge its unwanted passenger. The Doctor hung on grimly, long legs wrapped tightly around the torso of the android, one arm clinging onto its shoulder, scarf ends flying. He flicked the sonic screwdriver on and stabbed it into the gap between the back plates of the automaton. He wasn't prepared for the violent spasm that gripped the machine; he was thrown clear as the robot jerked and shook before collapsing into the snow where it twitched a few times and was still.

"Doctor!" cried Rose, hurrying over to him. "Are you ok?" He groaned in answer and picked himself up, rubbing his temples to ward off an impending headache that he supposed had come from cracking his head on the hard ground. They walked cautiously over to the downed machine and the Doctor removed the screwdriver from its back, tucking it safely back into his pocket.

"Are you alright?" he asked Rose. She grinned weakly at him and he enveloped her in a hug.

"Sorry to break up the moment, but who're you?" demanded a strange voice. The Doctor released Rose and turned to face the newcomer. They both raised their hands at the same time.


	3. Chapter 2

_The only reason I've managed to get another chapter up is because we (rather aptly, considering the setting of this story) had 5 inches of snow and therefore got a snowday. So, apart from catching up my homework, putting out food for the birds, going sledging and building a snowman (so what if I'm 18, it's still fun) I finished up chapter four, which means I can release this chapter on the unsuspecting world. Thanks again to Kitty, you appear to be the only person reading this other than me, so I hope you're still finding it good. And what's an A/N?_

* * *

"Who are you?" the stranger asked again, voice slightly muffled by the red scarf that covered the lower half of his face.

"I'm the Doctor, this is Rose," answered the Doctor. He opened his mouth with the intention of returning the question but shut it again in a hurry as more people materialised out of the trees. Well, he assumed they were people. The one who'd spoken had sounded human, but the Doctor knew from occasionally bitter experience that this was no guarantee the ninja-like beings were human. They appeared to be roughly humanoid shaped under the various layers of thick clothing they were wearing and seemed to be of average height for a human. Their faces, however, were obscured by coloured cloth and all of them were either hooded or wearing a hat, making them look like odd ninjas. Apparently though, he and Rose were not considered a threat and the large gun that had been trained on them was lowered. The Doctor heard the safety being snapped on and lowered his hands. Rose followed suit.

There were four of them altogether, the one with the red scarf keeping a close eye on the strange pair, while the rest peered down at the robot. One of them nudged it cautiously with the toe of its boot. When the machine didn't respond all three grabbed it and rolled it over onto its back. Unable to resist his curiosity, the Doctor wandered over to have a look too. The natives elbowed each other and nodded towards him, making rapid signs with their gloved hands that bore no resemblance to any sign languages the Doctor had ever come across, but none impeded his short walk over to join them. He froze, shocked at what he thought had been a robot. It wasn't purely a machine; inside the suit lay a man, shaven headed and pale skinned and rather unconscious. The Doctor crouched beside it and drew out the screwdriver to scan it, hoping his attack hadn't been fatal to the man inside. Most of his companions had at one time or other reminded him that curiosity had killed the cat, but he judged there was no immediate threat from the machine-man and anyway, cats had nine lives, or at least this one did.

"He's still alive," he told the baffled onlookers. He heard the safety catches on four guns being clicked off and sighed. People with guns, he thought, so predictable. He ran his hands over the plates of what he now identified as some type of mechanical exoskeleton. The fit of it was almost perfect, the plates shaped to perfectly conform to the contours of the human body. The armour of the suit was dark matt grey in colour while the connective material appeared to be a flexible kind of polymer that housed the thin cables that controlled the movements of the exoskeleton. The armour plates were incredibly smooth under his probing fingers although they were not cold enough to be metal. Again, he guessed they were a polymer, something like Kevlar but better, and just as bullet-proof judging by the several dings in the otherwise pristine expanse of the breastplate. This was good technology; incredibly advanced and not the kind of thing one would expect to find in such a backwater place as this. He gingerly touched the transparent faceplate but there was no reaction. He had no doubt the suit would greatly enhance the physical capabilities of the wearer, to the point of being almost super-human. Checking the face inside once again, the Doctor caught the flicker of a head-up display projecting onto the inside of the smooth faceplate. This was one seriously well engineered piece of kit.

His examination was cut short by the barrel of a gun being thrust into his face. He backed off rapidly and retreated to stand beside Rose, who was quietly taking in the events happening around her and recovering from their wild flight through the forest. Slinging its gun over its shoulder, one of the odd ninjas bent down and started fiddling around the neck of the suit. There was a hiss of escaping air and the helmet came off in the ninja's hands. The unconscious man's breath hung for seconds in the air in tiny clouds. The ninja rolled the occupant's head over to one side and extracted an earpiece, throwing it to the one with the red scarf who'd spoken aloud, who proceeded to grind it into atoms under the heel of his boot. In the meantime, the Doctor and Rose watched as their pursuer was lifted up by two of the silent ninjas and lugged off towards the trees. Their sentry motioned for them to follow.

A little way back from the edge of the trees several vehicles were hidden hastily under white camouflage cloths strewn with handfuls of snow. Beyond them, Rose saw, was another clearing, only this one was obviously man-made; it lacked the fallen trees and encroaching bushes of the one they had just left. This clearing had clear cut edges. Then she realised what it was. The circular rows of wooden stakes driven into the hard ground marked out graves, hidden now beneath the thick blanket of snow. Two newly filled places told the story of what these men had been doing, the brown of the heaped earth contrasting sharply with the white of the snow. Rose's hand rose automatically to her face. Staring at the centre of the rings where a carved wooden pole stood, she felt the Doctor find her hand and squeeze.

A crash brought Rose back to earth and she looked round to see that the vehicles had been revealed and the machine-man heaved onto the back of a flat truck where he was lying on the folded camouflage. The truck had wide tracks instead of wheels to help it move on the snow covered ground. Same idea as a snowmobile, she thought, only bigger. One of the ninjas jumped into the cab and started the engine. Two of the others had dragged completely alien vehicles out of the bushes and were proceeding to mount up and kick their transport into life. She supposed they looked a little bit like motor bikes in that the rider sat astride the machine and steered with handlebars, but there the tenuous resemblance ended. These bikes had no wheels or tracks; they floated above the surface of the snow. The rider leaned forward along the top of the bike, looking ahead through a small windscreen that directed the air that would otherwise unseat the rider at high speeds over the top of him. It also doubled as a display feeding information about the engine, fuel and speed to the driver. They were incredibly sleek and streamlined, better than any motor bike from Earth. The Doctor noticed her studying the strange transport.

"EVA's," he explained. Rose gave him a confused look. "EVA's. Elevating Versatile Aircraft. EVA for short. They're very fast, mostly used for racing. These ones look a bit better than the last ones I saw, technology must've moved on a bit."

"Why have these guys got them?" Rose asked as they clambered onto the back of the truck as instructed by a rather obvious point-and-wave gesture from the ninja perched next to the tied down exoskeleton. They took a seat with their backs against the cab while the driver revved the engine. With a crunch of gears the truck lumbered forward, slowly negotiating its way through the trees. The Doctor made a guess.

"Probably to fight these things with." Here he indicated their mechanically enhanced travelling companion. "I saw an EVA race once. Chap who won it was brilliant, I'd never seen anyone ride an EVA with such little regard for his own life. Point is, in an EVA race, you have a tag on your off-hand. The course changes, depends on where you are, but the one I saw was a city race, through the streets avoiding various obstacles. The courses are pretty long, so you only do three or four laps, but on the way round there are tag points that you have to hit or you get a time penalty added on at the end. They're not too bad, but the ones you have to watch out for are the ones at the beginnings and ends of the shortcuts. If you take a shortcut but don't hit either of the tags then you're pretty much out of the running. Introduces a bit of tactics into the race…"

"So how do you fight these machine thingys with a racing bike?" Rose interrupted before he went off on some long irrelevant anecdote. Bridling a little at her impertinence, he replied.

"You don't have to be holding the handlebars to steer an EVA, there are pressure pads under your knees, feet and ankles. See the way the bodywork is shaped to fit round a human leg?" Rose peered at the EVA following behind them. He was right, yet again. Something flapping along the line of the rider's leg caught her eye.

"They've got straps all down the legs," she noted. She turned to look at the Doctor. He smiled as he saw the realisation dawn on her. "So you don't fall off while you're shooting at the other side, I presume?" Rose guessed.

"Right," the Doctor replied. "And also very useful for flying upside down. Those straps go all the way up to your hips."

The conversation tailed off as they broke free of the trees at the bottom end of the valley, the truck picking up some considerable speed over the open ground. Rose looked sadly back at the blue speck of the TARDIS, standing solitary and still on the slope. She hoped it would be alright; the way the EVA riders were scanning the horizon made her sure there were more robot people in the vicinity. The Doctor, however, was apparently unconcerned and was attempting to engage their taciturn guard in conversation.

"So, um, how far until we get there then?" he enquired politely. When he didn't get a response, he tried again. "Er, where are we going to? Don't mean to be rude, we're new here, just taking a look around…" He trailed off, gesturing vaguely at the bleak surroundings. Rose chuckled as the Doctor waved a hand in front of the guard's face. "Hello? Anyone there? No?" His eyes crossed as he struggled to keep focus on the snub barrel of the gun that had materialised in his face. Rose broke into unbridled laughter as he scrambled backwards across the flat bed of the truck to bump into the unmoving bulk of the exoskeleton. The gun had disappeared as fast as it had appeared. The guard remained supremely disinterested and gave the impression of never having moved at all.

"Not the talkative type," the Doctor grumbled as he shuffled back to sit next to Rose, loud enough for the sentry to hear. Rose stifled her giggles behind a hand. The Doctor entwined his own rather cold hands in the ends of his over-long scarf and settled in for the journey, Rose withdrawing her hands into the ends of her sleeves, having forgotten the gloves she had stuffed into her pockets that morning.

"I spy, with my little eye," chanted the Doctor in a sing-song voice, "Something beginning with……. S." He looked expectantly at Rose, who rolled her eyes at him before giving her answer.

"Snow."

"Nope." He seemed genuinely delighted that she had failed to guess first time, grinning happily at her with a gleeful twinkle in his eyes. Rose sighed and looked around at the scenery that flowed past at a fair pace. She could see nothing else that began with an 's'.

"I give up," she conceded. The Doctor's face fell.

"You can't give up that easily!" he complained. "Come on, try again. It's really obvious, all you have to do is look!" he urged, gesturing vaguely around. Rose made a show of looking round her. Then she smiled.

"Sky?"

"See, I told you it was obvious. Your turn now." He settled more comfortably against the back of the cab and waited for her to challenge him.

"Ok. I spy with my little eye, something beginning with…c."

"Cloud," he guessed.

"Nope."

"Er," he cast around for something beginning with 'c'. "Cab?" Rose shook her head. "Caterpillar track?" He was rewarded with a funny look for that slightly desperate guess. He looked around, eyes narrowed, scrutinising everything he could see. "Camouflage cloth?" His companion nodded and he grinned triumphantly before choosing his object.

Time wore on and as the daylight faded so did their game, stars beginning to show their twinkling selves in the clear sky. As the darkness closed in on the little convoy the temperature plummeted and the Doctor and Rose huddled together to share precious warmth, the Doctor putting a protective arm around her shoulders as if to keep the cold from her by force of willpower alone. At some point their guard produced a large fuzzy blanket from nowhere and threw it at the Doctor, who was nearest. Nodding his thanks, he clumsily wrapped it round them both, trying to not wake Rose. She'd fallen asleep, blonde head resting on his shoulder, tired out by the events of the day. Task completed, the Doctor hugged Rose's sleeping form to him and hoped it wasn't far to go.


	4. Chapter 3

Slowly, Rose surfaced from her dream. It had been a good dream, although she hadn't a clue what it had been about. Eyes still shut, she rolled over, wishing she was still asleep. Wait, her drowsy mind told her, something's wrong. Her thought processes started to wind up to normal speed. It had been cold when she went to sleep hadn't it? It definitely wasn't cold now. And where was the rumble of the truck's engine? Her eyes snapped open to see a wall made of logs. There definitely hadn't been any walls when she'd gone to sleep. So she wasn't on the back of the truck anymore. Turning over onto her back, she realised she was in a bed. Someone had taken off her jacket and scarf and boots before they'd put her in there too. That was nice of them, she thought. Looking left, her gaze immediately alighted on the Doctor, who was sitting on a chair next to a simple table on which was the Doctor's long stripy scarf. Her missing jacket and scarf were slung over the back of a second chair on the opposite side of the table to the Doctor, her boots placed side by side under it.

"You're awake then," he stated, a smile playing about his lips. "Good dream was it?" Rose nodded sleepily and propped herself up to get a better look around. Other than the Doctor, the chairs and the table, the room was bare excepting a couple of dusty shelves. "We're back at base. It's built in the end of a valley. Very defendable. Judging by the run down look of the place, I think we're pretty cut off from the rest of the world. The construction of the buildings is very frontier settlement; they're all sturdy but built from logs, like this one. Something's scared these people. There are barricades on the road into the village and there are enough guns being toted round here to respectably furnish an army, or at least a decent militia."

"They seem nice enough though," she interrupted. "This beats all the other cells we've been in. How long have you been there?" She couldn't resist asking, slightly weirded out by the thought that he'd been watching her sleep.

"Most of the night," he admitted, a little bashfully. "Tom explained how they'd found us and I filled in the bit about being chased by the man in the 'skeleton and then he put us up in his spare room. We've got to go to the town meeting later today and properly explain who we are but they seem satisfied we're not going to summon more of the machines so they left us in Tom's care, although we have been locked in." Rose nodded sagely, taking in the information and then trying to figure some sense into it. She gave up after a few seconds; too much had happened while she'd been asleep she concluded.

Levering herself out of the comfy bed, she sat on the edge of it and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. She stretched and stood up, walking over to the chair holding her stuff. Pulling on the boots, she yawned before dragging her fingers through her hair. By the feel of it, she was glad she didn't have a mirror to look in. A comb floated into her field of vision, supported by the Doctor's hand. Mumbling her thanks she tried to sort out her hair, finally getting the worst of the knots out and automatically tucking it behind her ears to keep it out of her face. The whine of the sonic screwdriver drew her attention to the door, which the Doctor was unlocking without the use of a key. The lock clicked and he pushed open the door, pausing to allow her to go through first.

They were in a fairly large room, of log-cabin style timber construction. It obviously served as kitchen and living room combined, the whole space illuminated by a single dim electric light that hung in the centre of the room. There was another door to the left of the one they had emerged from, matched by one on the right, presumably another bedroom, and a door in the middle of the far wall between two large windows which were both curtained with thick black cloth. Weak daylight peeked around the edges, leading Rose to estimate it was early morning. By the front door a row of hooks held a long hooded brown overcoat, its sleeves fraying at the ends, a red cloth scarf, a quilted jacket, a woolly green hat and a pair of snow goggles.

"How did you two get out?" asked a puzzled voice. Rose noticed a man sitting on one of two low couches over to their left. She assumed it must be Tom. The Doctor kindly provided him with a reply.

"I'm… good with doors." He paused, glancing back at the now open door. "Um, forgive me for asking, but why were we locked in?"

"Wasn't my idea, I just got told. I guess the elders really want you to turn up to the meeting," the man drawled. He stood up and straightened his clothes. "I was just about to come and wake you up anyway. Figured it wouldn't do any harm to get there a bit early, I 'spect they'd quite like to quiz you on that story you told 'em last night. Better to get it over with before everyone crams into that hall, it gets pretty warm in there I can tell you, what with all them people and the winter fire going. Keep the meet as short as possible. You got any warmer clothes than you arrived in yesterday Doctor?"

Rose and the Doctor followed their host out into the cold. It was like walking into a brick wall, every breath seeming to freeze them from the inside out. Tom locked the door behind them and motioned for them to set off to the right. A bitter wind had struck up in the night, Rose noticed, and it nipped at her hands until she pulled on her gloves. Rose observed they were moving uphill, towards the point where the two sides of the valley met and a waterfall cascaded down into a deep pool that fed the stream that ran through the village. She smiled at the Doctor's back as he strode out confidently ahead of her. Tom had lent him a coat, hooded and calf-length like his own brown one, only this one was dark green. Several stripes of the Doctor's scarf, which had both ends thrown over his shoulder today, clashed horribly with it, but at the same time several stripes complemented it rather well. The Doctor had tried to refuse the loan, but eventually he'd given in, confessing that he had actually been a bit cold yesterday, after all the running around had finished. The coat, made for the broader shouldered Tom, didn't quite fit properly, the shoulders of the coat slipping down the Doctor's own, but that meant the sleeves slipped down to cover his bare hands, the tips of the long fingers peeking out at the ends. There was a small hole worn in the left elbow and the edges of the sleeves and hood were a little frayed from long use, but it was made of thick warm material. All in all, not bad considering the circumstances, Rose reckoned.

Tom fell into step beside Rose while the Doctor followed on after them, head turning this way and that as he tried to absorb as much of the little town as he could. As they walked through the town, Tom explained a little about the place to Rose. The Doctor's guess that the little settlement was under some kind of siege hadn't been far wrong. Originally, it had been a peaceful little farming village, a hand-built home for a group of pioneers looking for a piece of land to call their own. The frontier had since passed Hope, the inexorable march of progress expanding across the unclaimed expanse of the land beyond the mountains, not that this bothered the people of Hope. The summers were warm and crops grew well, allowing the people to exist happily enough despite the hard winters. The residents had traded with the nearest town, everyone had enough to eat and life was generally pleasant, if hard work for the close-knit community of Hope.

"Is that what this place is called, Hope?" asked Rose, smiling at the thought.

"Yeah," replied Tom. "It's pretty apt now. This is where you come if you ain't got none, you come to Hope. Decent number of the people here are refugees. Most of 'em're terrified, just keep running 'til they fall down. We've had some scared so bad they won't go outside no more. Worse, we even got a kid driven mad, so terrified he don't speak at all, by what he saw 'em do to his mam and pa. We're still lookin' for his brother, but we don't hold out much hope to find him alive."

"Oh my god. What happened?" Rose wondered silently what the Doctor had landed them in the middle of this time. Wherever they went there always seemed to be someone needing their help; she was starting to think the Doctor was a sort of magnet for difficult situations. Tom seemed to steel himself to provide her with the answer to her question.

"Well, when we got up to the farm, they'd gone, taken the older son with 'em we guess, but little Isaac, he'd hidden when they'd attacked and they ha'n't found him. Got his parents though. Seemed like retribution for the old man gettin' in a lucky shot that took down one o' their damn machines. Weren't hardly even enough left for a decent an' proper burial." Tom choked a little on the last words, then shook his head as if to clear the memory from his mind. He looked at Rose, who stared back, aghast.

"Oh my god," she repeated, at a loss for words. "Poor kid. Will he get better?" Tom gave her a wan smile.

"We're tryin' to help him, but he watched his parents get ripped to shreds. Can't blame the kid for bein' a bit cuckoo after that. I know I would be." A sudden terrifying thought struck Rose.

"Was that was what chasing us yesterday?" she asked. Tom gave her a reassuring look. Who were these people, this odd pair, that didn't know of the danger that stalked these hillsides, he wondered. He studied the pretty face before him, silently commending the Doctor for his defence of this outlander girl. Yes, that was the word to describe them. Outlanders. Foreigners. Maybe even offworlders, although he was surprised at how far from the capital they were. He'd never heard of any offworlders travelling farther from the capital than a few miles. They certainly were a strange pair, and make no mistake about that Tom Harper, he told himself. Realising his prolonged silence was making her nervous, Tom replied.

"Yes," he said in a carefully measured tone, "But they normally only capture their prey. Isaac's parents were the first ones they killed." Rose swallowed inaudibly and visibly relaxed a little. She knew from previous experience that capture meant at least a fighting chance of survival, especially when you had a screwdriver that could unlock almost any lock in the universe. The Doctor gravitated back to them, a sign to those who knew him that he was unsure of their final destination. Luckily, they had arrived.

"Here we are. Hope town hall." Tom waved grandly at the slightly shabby structure before them. Like most of the buildings in Hope, it was solidly constructed to keep the fierce winter out, with fairly small windows. A covered smoke hole in the centre of the roof leaked out a pale grey trail of smoke, the snow around it melted in a circle. A paved square was laid out in front of it, the grey flagstones meticulously swept clear of snow, and behind it the two sides of the valley met, water dropping gracefully in a series of falls until it reached the rippled pool below. The large doors of the hall stood open invitingly and the trio went inside.

It took a few seconds for Rose's eyes to adjust; after the glare of the snow the inside of the hall seemed very dark. Slowly the hall brightened as she got used to the daylight that trickled in through the small windows. It reminded her of pictures she'd seen in school of Viking meeting halls, with its intricately carved rafters and rather low roof. Long benches had been placed in a rough circle around a fireplace, over which hung a large blackened pot. The place was devoid of other people, so Rose wandered over towards the fire, feeling the warmth of the air increasing as she moved closer. Tom followed, stepping over one of the benches and sitting down. He wriggled out of his brown coat and red scarf, draping them over the wooden bench. He spoke.

"You're not from round here are you." It was more of a statement than a question. "As outlanders, there are a few customs of ours you might like to know before the meetin' starts," he told Rose, the fire-light dancing in his hazel eyes. She sat down next to him, removing her own outer layers and laying them down on top of the pile he'd started.

"Go on," she prompted, not in the least put out by the fact that Tom had called them 'outlanders'.

"When the meetin' starts, the chief will take a bowl and pass it round the circle." He directed her attention to a wooden bowl set on one of the hearth stones with a lazy wave of his hand. "It'll only go round these benches, where the heads of houses sit. The chief sits at the end furthest from the door, then everyone's arranged in order of how long your family's been part of the Hope community round to the other side, where you two'll be sat, with me. Anyways, when the bowl gets passed to you, you say 'I have no need' then give it to the next person along."

"Old tradition?" mused the Doctor, surprising them both with his unnoticed approach. He stepped into the circle and walked round the circle, inquiring gaze sweeping over everything inside it. His eyes snapped back to Tom, who nodded reluctantly. He could feel his explanation slipping from his grasp. The Doctor carried on. "What was it you called it, a winter fire? Well, that suggests to me that it burns all winter. And the pot. The pot contains…" He dashed over and dipped a hastily wiped finger in. He yelped and rapidly withdrew it, sticking it in his mouth to cool off. "Mmm, rather nice. Needs a little more salt though. Food for anyone who needs it. Would I be right in saying that pot, no matter how many starving people it has to feed, is never allowed to get empty?" He grinned delightedly at his little audience. "Lovely little custom that, all caring and sharing." The sound of someone clearing their throat loudly made him shut up and whirl round, green coat swishing with the sudden movement.


End file.
